Best Road Crankset

[madcow]

I like to try and be totally honest with people, even if it upsets some of the manufacturers. We sell a fair amount of lightning cranks, but no more than we do of any other crank, and we've had more Lightning cranks returned than any other. On the plus side, the guys at lightning are usually really good at taking care of problems with their cranks. We do not see an unacceptably high number of them returned, and they aren't returned because of catastrophic failure(it's usually qc issues like pedal inserts being a little crooked.) The think about lightning is that they are good cranks if you get a good one. But you have a higher chance that your first one may not be.

As for the Clavicula being overpriced: I showed a clavicula to a friend who is a carbon engineer for Trek. Typically when he sees things it's the usual response in that it's nothing special. Most companies do the same things, with the same techniques and same materials. However when I showed him the Clavicula his response was, "wow, they've really done something amazing." He went on to explain about all the different things he could see that made the crank special, and that was without even cutting it up and looking at the rest of it. Of course that doesn't mean it's a perfect crank either, it's still a little delicate and still a little wide. However it may not be so overpriced if one knew what actually went into making one.

Still as I see it, every crank has pros and cons and you just have to decide the characteristics that are most important to you. Make a list and rank those criteria and then put the 3 cranks the fill each criteria in order of how they fill the need. When you're done average out your answers and see which crank fits your needs best.

[tochnics]

to be honest
if the clavicula had interchangebel spiders i would have it
also i need to have 30mm axle crank that fit in all type of frames
i have a carbon spider in 130mm and a black alu 110mm
add the same weight and much lower price and you cant go wrong
naturly for that you get less technology then the crank almost 1,5 x more in price
but for a mortal like me it works

i always had fibre lyte chainrings on my DA7800 and record crank, also new ones on my current lightning crank

edit: changed fibre lyte into lightning

[gumgardner]

i always had fibre lyte chainrings on my DA7800 and record crank, also new ones on my current fibre lyte crank

Fiber-lyte makes a crank?

[stephen@fibre-lyte]

Nope, it was a mis-type (see above)

I doubt that we could do any better than what is already available and the market is fairly swamped. I'm always impressed with smaller manufacturers coming out with new cranks (whether I like the crank or not) as it's a seriously competitive market.

[kevinkalis]

Anyone have a bit more info on the Powerarms SL. They're a bit hard to come by in the UK. The only guys I've seen who might sell them are poshbikes and I'm still waiting for them to get back to me.

As well, does anybody have any real experience with them. Any problems, support issues etc. At the moment, I'm down to either the Powerarms or the Vuma Quad, they're the only ones that seem to tick all the relevant boxes.

It's been mentioned in madcow's crankset shootout that the Clavicula has reliability issues so I'm a bit iffy about them, any thoughts on this?

[dieselgeezer]

I don't mean to be rude but if you couldn't actually see it, I reckon you couldn't tell if you were riding a real cheapo chainset or a helium filled carbo-titanium jobbie. If you just want expensive bling then buy it. I don't think it's going to make you faster; bigger legs & lungs will do that!

[range]

To me, it always comes down to the best bang for the buck. Recently, I was putting together a bike for a personal project, and I wanted to keep costs as low as possible. I needed a few SRAM Red parts, lower than cost. I can get the whole group for not that much money, but I didn't want to be stuck with extra parts in stock.

I ended up buying them on WW and they were a good deal. I paid $250 for a new SRAM Red crank (this is quite lower than cost). In my mind, this was a great deal because of the price.

This being said, of the cranks mentioned here, I'd probably want to try the Zipp VumaQuad next. Actually, I'll probably order one when I decide on my next frame. They have some new chainrings, or so I was told, which will make shifting that much smoother.

So in essence, if someone is trying to get a deal on parts, they should check out the for sale section on different forums and buy some stuff from other roadies. That saves a lot of money.

[shabbasuraj]

7900 is the best.

[kdogg32]

I run Campy Super Record cranks and Rotor 3D cranks. Both are very nice, but the Rotor cranks simply look awesome and are just as stiff.

[sgray]

I switched to the Easton EC90 crankset and love it, shifts better than my old DA 7800 crankset and around 100g lighter. And you can pick one up in the $400's.

Scratch the EC90 recommendation, mine failed too yesterday. Same problem as everyone else, the spindle has come loose from the drivetrain side. The day after I posted a recommendation for these they failed, go figure
...and now they're discontinued.

[KonaScandium]

I sure love my Campagnolo Chorus carbon crankset.

[Mario Jr.]

I don't mean to be rude but if you couldn't actually see it, I reckon you couldn't tell if you were riding a real cheapo chainset or a helium filled carbo-titanium jobbie. If you just want expensive bling then buy it. I don't think it's going to make you faster; bigger legs & lungs will do that!

This is not Cyclingnews forum, but Weight Weenies. Please make up if you want to actually contribute to anything here except from making blanket statements...

FWIW, The gram to dollar/euro/pound/etc ratio is very good on lightweight cranks compared to frames and wheels.

[stephen@fibre-lyte]

Anyone have a bit more info on the Powerarms SL. They're a bit hard to come by in the UK. The only guys I've seen who might sell them are poshbikes and I'm still waiting for them to get back to me.

From what I gather they're a bit in short supply. Poshbikes are the UK distributor so if they don't have any chances are that no one else in the UK will.

[karlch]

im looking at upgradeing my crankset but i just dont know which one to get i like the dura ace carbon but id like either the clavicula or the ax i think it will boil down to which i can get when the time comes.

[shabbasuraj]

7900.... or if you want to show your friends that you know something about engineering stiffness then go 6600... that crank is known for its AWESOME absolute rigidity. This is a FACT.